LDAP connection handling in TIBCO Spotfire Server. – Revvity Signals

Date Posted: 2018-09-26
Product: TIBCO Spotfire®

Problem:

LDAP connection handling in TIBCO Spotfire Server.

Solution:

Before TIBCO Spotfire Server 5.0 hotfix HF-001, Spotfire Server (TSS) used an LDAP connection pool to reduce the number of open connections to the LDAP servers. This was done by reusing old connections if they were still valid, which they were unless the server had closed the connection. Logins were exceptions to this rule, so when a user logged in, the server would initiate the connection, perform a bind operation, then disconnect.
Starting with TIBCO Spotfire Server 5.0 HF-001, and in later releases (such as TSS 5.5 and later), communication with the LDAP servers is much less frequent and connection pooling is no longer applicable, since connections almost always time out before they are used again. In the newer releases, the LdapContextFactory class opens a connection when required, then immediately closes the connection once the action is complete. This applies to LDAP User Directory synchronizations and also to authentication attempts.

Note that even though communication with the LDAP servers is less frequent than in pre-5.0 versions, Basic LDAP authentication still initiates many connections, because a connection will be made for each authentication attempt. For example:

server.log:
...
DEBUG 2015-09-24T07:15:08,287-0700 [unknown, #0] jaas.ldap.LDAPLoginModule: Authenticating user with principal id 'CN=myUser,OU=ADMINS,OU=USERS,DC=east,DC=local'
DEBUG 2015-09-24T07:15:08,287-0700 [unknown, #0] server.ldap.LdapContextFactory: Creating an LDAP connection for principal 'CN=myUser,OU=ADMINS,OU=USERS,DC=east,DC=local' to LDAP server(s) ldap://myLDAPserver:389
DEBUG 2015-09-24T07:15:08,287-0700 [unknown, #0] server.ldap.LdapContextFactory: Successfully created an LDAP connection for principal 'CN=myUser,OU=ADMINS,OU=USERS,DC=east,DC=local' to LDAP server ldap://myLDAPserver:389
DEBUG 2015-09-24T07:15:08,287-0700 [unknown, #0] server.ldap.LdapContextFactory: Closing LdapContext for ldap://myLDAPserver:389
...